


color theory

by joonyoungs



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27677762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonyoungs/pseuds/joonyoungs
Summary: Chanhee is reminded of a conclusion he came to long ago— that Changmin is every color, their love every hue imaginable. In shades no one has thought of yet, in tones the human eye cannot yet fathom.— or, Chanhee sees Changmin in every color throughout his life.
Relationships: Choi Chanhee | New/Ji Changmin | Q
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	color theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iridescence (10softbot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/10softbot/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Erin!! I hope this is the softest childhood friends to lovers you could imagine for nq, because you deserve it. Thank you for being such a wonderful friend, and I hope today was as special as you are ♡♡♡

“Do you think we’ll still be friends when we’re old?”

Clouds roll by as Chanhee looks up at the sky, so blue and bright it might as well be glowing like the night light at the foot of his bed. He doesn’t answer at first, just picks out shapes in the fluffy white above him— an airplane, a heart, a rabbit. Finally he rolls his head to the side and looks over at his best friend.   
  
“Yeah,” he says, looking at the way Changmin’s eyes light up. Changmin is staring straight at him, dark hair almost in his eyes. It’s long, too long by the way Chanhee heard his mom saying in the car when they pulled up to the park and saw him. Chanhee paid it no mind, just hastily unbuckled his seatbelt and slid out of the minivan door, running as fast as his little legs could carry him to the grassy area where Changmin was kicking a soccer ball.

They are seven years old, and the world is so green.   
  
Green as in new, like Chanhee’s mother tells him about every spring, but green as in  _ color _ . The crayons in the pencil box back at Chanhee’s school desk, the ribbons in the hair of Changmin’s sister, the grass stains on both of their shorts as they roll around in the fields. Eventually they get bored of the soccer ball. Changmin’s too competitive and Chanhee isn’t interested in the way he has to run after the thing once they kick it to the far end of the lawn, so they collapse onto the dewy ground and start picking shapes out of the clouds.   
  
A car for Changmin. A star for Chanhee. A house that they both pick out at nearly the same time, their hands shooting up into the air and pointing in the same direction.

Laughter, a knocking of their lanky arms against each other, before falling at their sides. Eventually the two of them lay there, nothing but the sound of the breeze between the oak trees around the field, when the question slips out of Changmin’s mouth.   
  
It was puzzling then and it’s puzzling now, Chanhee looking at Changmin like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. He tilts his head as much as he can when it’s laying against the ground, taking in the way Changmin’s eyes are so round and wide and they have this look in them like Chanhee’s older brother has sometimes when he thinks about going away for school. A piece of grass is on Changmin’s cheek, jagged and small like it had been ripped from the field only moments before.    
  
It is so green, and Chanhee suddenly feels worried.   
  
“What do you think?” Chanhee asks, little fists balling up and resting on his stomach. Changmin blinks, shifts his head. The piece of grass flutters from his cheek.   
  
“I hope so.”

🌈

It’s the summer before Chanhee’s fifth grade year when his world stops for the first time.   
  
His brother comes home from school, a fancy far-away college with a name Chanhee can barely even remember. The excitement had been almost too much, Chanhee shuffling his feet against the tile in the classroom as he tried to work on his schoolwork only to be scolded by the teacher. He didn’t mind though, not with the promise of playing with his older brother after school powering him through the day.    
  
By the time he clambers down the stairs for dinner, he hears the familiar sound of luggage being piled up at the door and his parents’ voices welcoming their son home. Chanhee doesn’t get the welcome he wants, though, because when he enters through the front room he barely gets more than a ruffle of his hair and a pat on the back. Through the confusion, Chanhee can only think this is because of the girl in the doorway behind him, who gets ushered into the room and introduced to the family. They spend a whole dinner together, and Chanhee can’t take his eyes off his brother’s face, the girl’s dress the color of sapphires.   
  
Chanhee is ten years old, and the world is so blue.   
  
It isn’t until they leave two days later that Chanhee feels the world begin again. Changmin sits on the front porch with him, their scuffed-up tennis shoes feeling heavy on the concrete. He tells Chanhee that sometimes siblings grow up too much, that they come home and feel like a stranger, but eventually they become themselves again. The world begins again— sputtering at first, moving a little slower than it did once before, but projecting forward just as it always does.

🌈

The beginnings of high school throws Chanhee into a new world, one that only has Changmin at his side in passing moments.   
  
He’s athletic, always has been, and Changmin finds himself on the soccer team at school. His immediate friend group shift to people with track suit pants and hair bleached by the sun. They walk the hallways in masses, imposing without meaning to be, loud without even trying. He always looks at Chanhee when he does, gives him a smile and a nod when they see each other, but Chanhee knows they’re in two different worlds now.   
  
Chanhee sings in the school choir now, spot next to him empty when Changmin just doesn’t have time to practice anymore. Eventually it gets filled with a girl with long blonde hair who gives Chanhee a smile every day, when he can only think of Changmin running around the field with his new friends, his new life.   
  
Later that year, when the frost begins to collect on the windows and the sidewalks are covered in ice, Changmin invites Chanhee over for a movie. He doesn’t just invite Chanhee, not like they used to as kids when they had sleeping bags and a bowl of popcorn between them. This time there is nothing but a single couch and two girls waiting for them when Changmin ushers him inside, giggling to each other when they see him. 

Chanhee suddenly doesn’t want to be here, not really, but he sits on the couch anyway and lets one of the girls lean over his direction and say hi. He’s vaguely aware she’s in his math class, bright eyes and breath that smells like corner-store gum. He watches Changmin pull a new DVD from a bag, waving it around and smiling when the girls laugh.   
  
“ Insidious?” Chanhee asks skeptically, already shifting in his seat. He doesn’t miss the way Changmin’s face lights up.   
  
“My new favorite,” he says simply.   
  
It’s mostly a blur after that, the lights switched off and the four of them finding their spots on the couch. The girl with the bright eyes curls into Chanhee, links her arm with his and rests a blush-covered cheek onto his shoulder. He looks over the top of her head, eerie music playing as he catches sight of Changmin again.    
  
Arm around the other girl, a small smile on his face that for a moment, Chanhee wishes could be for him. That he could smell the cologne he put on special for tonight, could lean into Changmin’s chest when the story on screen is too scary to look at with such wide eyes. But this is a different world, one where someone he doesn’t love is pressed against him and the room is bathed in grayscale hues.   
  
Chanhee is thirteen years old, and the world is so gray.

It doesn’t warm up until after the movie, when the girls get picked up by their parents and Chanhee and Changmin are left in the doorway together. Chanhee stomps into his shoes, the chill of the outside still sitting like ice on his collar until a hand rests on his shoulder. A meeting of the eyes, Changmin’s face lighting up with a smile, and in that moment Chanhee feels warmer than he had been in months. 

🌈

  
  


The lingering sound of cheers and laughter ring in Chanhee’s ears. Hats long since thrown, the field littered with graduation caps. He sidesteps a group of friends hugging, one of them pulling out their phones to take a photo of the moment. The sun beats down on his neck, making Chanhee loosen his tie and look for his family somewhere in the sea of faces. 

He finds them quickly enough, his parents waving a camera to get his attention and his brother and sister in law carrying a bouquet of flowers for him. The sight makes him smile, weaving through the crowd and being enveloped in their embrace. They tell Chanhee how proud they all are, how they knew he could do it, and a sense of calm washes over him. 

It isn’t until later that day, when the sun finds its home lower in the sky, that Chanhee finds his freedom. Slipped out of the uncomfortable dress shirt and into a shirt that lets him breathe, Chanhee feels a little more like himself once he starts walking through the neighborhoods. He could take this route with his eyes closed, the memories of a thousand other trips the same way coloring these streets. The sound of bikes coasting down the street, children calling out to each other. The familiar smell of freshly cut grass greets him as he rounds the last corner, the familiar bay windows beckoning him closer.   
  
Changmin’s home was like an extension of its own, so many years walking through the doorway he was now standing in front of, ringing the bell with a shaky hand.   
  
When he opens the door, Changmin looks almost too real, like the beginnings of summer wrapped up in tanned skin and a smile. His face lights up, white t-shirt stretches across his shoulders and making him look like he’s glowing. He closes the door behind him, hand still on the doorknob.   
  
“I couldn’t find you after graduation,” Chanhee says, doesn’t know why his voice is shaking. (But he does, of course he does.)   
  
Changmin smiles, walks onto the front porch more until they’re standing close, too close together. “It was a little crazy,” he answers, reaching out to brush some hair out of Chanhee’s eyes. “Were you looking for me?”   
  
Chanhee nods, feels his arms weigh a hundred pounds at his side, and then weigh nothing at all as he raises one of his hands to rest on the back of Changmin’s head. “I wanted to do this.”   
  
Over a decade of wanting, countless moments of what-ifs molded into one second, where Chanhee angles his head in close and leans in— stopping just short. A sort of silent request for permission, where Changmin’s breath is close enough to smell like the same toothpaste he’s been using since he was twelve. It’s a kind of familiarity that makes Chanhee want to cry a little, but he doesn’t get a chance to because Changmin closes the gap and they are kissing and they are  _ kissing— _   
  
Chanhee is eighteen years old, and the world is so pink. 

The shape of Changmin’s lips is soft and everything he hoped for. Chanhee reaching up, so greedy in his want he almost doesn’t know what it was like not to kiss Changmin. The sky behind them a Impressionist backdrop, muddled shades of pink and orange and purple tinting the sky like something more beautiful than any painting, any stretch of the imagination. 

🌈

  
  
Champagne, white wine, murky whisky, all in glasses that litter the table. Cream tablecloths cover every single table, the banquet hall a small sea of clouds surrounding a dance floor. A piano sings near the far wall, windows overlooking the lighted garden outdoors.    
  
A wedding, in the center of the city and on a warm summer night, brings back memories that Chanhee could never forget.   
  
Not their own, the two of them just out of college by now. They watch their friends, two suits of navy, sway across the dance floor. Forehead to forehead, looking at each other like they’re the only people in this world despite the crowds of other dancers around them. Chanhee thinks he knows how they feel, Changmin’s thumb gracing over the back of his interlinked hand as they sit at a nearby table.   
  
“They look good, don’t they?” Changmin asks, so handsome in his dark gray suit. The first button of his dress shirt is undone, Chanhee’s request that morning at the hotel, where he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the center of his sternum. Chanhee leans forward and rests his cheek on Changmin’s blazer-covered shoulder.   
  
“Sure do,” Chanhee replies, and allows himself to picture himself and Changmin in their shoes, just for the briefest of moments. A sound on the other end of the table takes Chanhee out of his thoughts, the two of them turning to their friend.   
  
“You never told us,” Kevin starts, tilting his head a little and narrowing his eyes. Jacob sits on the other side of him, looking at them in interest like he already knows the question. “How did you two meet, anyway?”   
  
The question makes Chanhee smile, sitting up straight and looking at Changmin. Their hands are still intertwined, and Chanhee thinks of colors. Of greens and blues and the richest pinks, of steely grays and deep reds that beckon him back for more. Chanhee is reminded of a conclusion he came to long ago— that Changmin is every color, their  _ love _ every hue imaginable. In shades no one has thought of yet, in tones the human eye cannot yet fathom.   
  
Chanhee looks at Changmin, their eyes meeting, and smiles bloom on both of their faces. Chanhee squeezes Changmin’s hand, the warmth spreading throughout both of them.   
  
“It happened like this.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated ♡ also come say hi on twitter/cc/yell into the darkness of night, I will be listening
> 
> [twitter (I have a new @!)](twitter.com/joonyien) / [cc](curiouscat.me/realkevmoon)


End file.
